This result runs contrary to my observations with a $750 German device selected based on reviews of the sensor used (and a roundup writeup about these air quality sensors that had been here on HN years back).
Indeed, and I prefer short period of increased air pollution + ventilation and air filters, to nonstick pan and eating PFAS which is unavoidable (and unmeasurable at home).
I have an air purifier in my bedroom. It measures PM1, PM2.5 and PM10 as well as TVOC (Total volatile organic components) and adjusts it's air intake according to the air quality. Usually it runs at very low speed and is inaudible, even at night.
When I start cooking downstairs, within a minute or so I hear the purifier upstairs ramp up to full speed.
Gas combustion absolutely contributes to poorer air quality but I would argue that actually cooking (not what’s happening in this test) is much worse. Heating oil and cooking proteins will quickly fill a house. If you can smell it, the air quality has been reduced.
No, gas combustion doesn't generate any significant amount of particles.
It produces CO2, NO2 and some CO. But it's not going to show anything on a PM2.5 meter.
The particles when frying come from the oil turning into smoke, as well as just aerosolization even well below the smoke point. These are what send PM2.5 levels skyrocketing.
When I sear a steak in cast iron, my PM2.5 levels go from their baseline of ~2 ug/m^3 to ~200–400. And course you can smell it in the air.
Low PM count in his bedroom? Good for him, but try right after making your bed. Nobody is so perfectly defoliated that they don't have dust in their bedroom.
Also, cooking of all kinds spikes PM levels in my experience. Maybe eggs in a 100% clean non-stick pan are an exception, but I doubt it if you can smell it.
I have a Winix air purifier from Costco in my bedroom, and it has a small air quality indicator light (blue -> yellow -> red) though I'm too lazy to look up what it's measuring.
Surprisingly, making the bed, shaking out the sheets, or vacuuming doesn't make it change color.
But farting in the room makes it red for minutes.
An ever amusing phenomenon that makes my girlfriend and I chuckle on a weekly basis.
My favorite method of frying an egg is in a wok with oil. It gets amazingly crispy, rather than floppy, which is how it usually turns out in a conventional nonstick pan.
But it pretty consistently sets off the Coway air purifier in my kitchen when I do it...so I would assume frying with oil to the point of smoking does adversely affect air quality.
Frying would require some sort of oil or fat and it’s hard to tell but the pan looks clean. Anything with oil will dramatically bump up those numbers. It’s intuitive just cleaning your kitchen, grease being cooked travels.
My one wish is the west adopted Chinese style kitchens. Even in new condo builds the kitchen will be isolated in a room you can close off, with an exterior wall and powerful exhaust vents. I always found it perplexing how ok folks are with what feels like cooking food in their bedroom.
Hey, the author here! Thanks for your suggestion. I did use oil here, but not alot. I should measure it next time. I'm trying to figure out how to synthetically generate uniform particles for testing some DIY filters I'm making, and just frying stuff in more and more oil seems like a good bet.
Two things, no oil as others have suggested but also frying eggs does not require a very high temperature, around 150 Celsius and your eggs don’t look particularly browned (which is how I prefer them too) so you aren’t exercising the Maillard reaction, which generates the PM2.5. Try again with browning a fatty cut of beef or pork steak in oil which require higher temperatures where lots of browning is occurring and you are also closer to the smoke point of the oil.
I used oil but not a lot. I didn't know about the Maillard reaction, and this is good info. Thank you, and I'll do this for next time. I want to figure out an easy way to make PM2.5 to test my air purifier.
Not sure about yours, but many extractor (vent) fans will just suck the air over a very loose filter and throw it back into the room. Many in the US are part of the over stove microwave and rarely vent at more than 250cfm (~7 m3/min) where specific vent fans that go outside can move upwards of 700-800cfm (20m3/min).
Now if we're cooking with gas (as the east Germans use to say in the 80's), that generates quite some PM2.5 in an of itself.
Also, anyone cooking eggs without getting to the Maillard reaction (or for that matter, with oil instead of butter) should never again legally allowed to approach a frying pan :D
I've found just opening a window does the most to make a difference - in most European / US homes (even with propane / gas service) the "exhaust" just blows into the same room or a cabinet!
That said, I personally use the Breathe Airmonitor Plus [1] - I kept having issues with calibration with the temtop unit. Mostly decided on this one since it uses an NDIR sensor similar to my Aranet which I carry with me all the time.
> Something weird though is that turning on my extractor fan didn’t really do much.
Does your extractor fan vent to the outside, or just recirculate through a filter? In my experience, people often overestimate how much protection ventilation provides. It mostly dilutes contaminants rather than removing or isolating them. For example, with moderately hazardous compounds, a fume hood works fine under normal use, but in the event of a spill it can’t bring levels back down quickly enough to protect the operator. In that kind of situation, an isolator makes far more sense or adding PPE, though that can be burdensome.
What really surprised me is how high the values get from just a single pan. It makes me wonder what it’s like in a commercial kitchen with multiple pans at higher temperatures, especially if the extractor fan fails and there’s no time to shut down operations to fix it.
> Something weird though is that turning on my extractor fan didn’t really do much. I need to look into that!
Where the device is relative to the pan and fan would clearly matter. It should be across the room to get a better estimate of the net effect. Not right next to the pan.
I have been tracking my airquality with a device called AirQ Pro / Science
What i like about this device that they give a very precisce and clear physical definition of each metric and explain by what quantitative factors the metric is influenced.
incl. potential measurement error sources and ability's to reset sensors.
Definitely recommend this over other air quality devices that try to simplify all the measurements into good/bad..
(Note: Just a happy user no affiliation whatsoever with the company)
One thing that frustrates me about air quality is that we have sensors for various types of gasses, but when it comes to particulates, the sensors are just telling you the size. The composition of the particle has to make a huge difference in terms of the effects. Metal dust from a brake pad or rubber from a tire must do very different things to your lungs than vegetable oil.
I've taken to performing much of my higher temperature (and presumably higher aerosolization) cooking outdoors. Mostly to reduce the heat load to my home, but also so I can smoke and fry and sear with abandon.
As a side effect, I now have a collection of very well seasoned cast iron.
I have a much cheaper Temtop unit in my kitchen. Its maximum reading for PM2.5 is 500. Usually if I apply too much heat it will stay at 500. And it detects PM2.5 way faster than my nose can smell smoke or burning.
I wonder if there are any studies of professional chefs and their long-term health. I see video after video of chefs cooking in close proximity to oil cooked food, wood burning setups (BBQ), waiting for cooking oil to smoke, even smoking while cooking, etc.
If there should be a cohort that would be the canary in the coal mine, it would be professional chefs, who day-in and day-out cook for a living over several hours per day. Yet, I have not heard of any studies raising alarms for the profession.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 75.2 ms ] threadTry cooking with oil and you'll see PM levels go to enormous heights.
When I start cooking downstairs, within a minute or so I hear the purifier upstairs ramp up to full speed.
Were they talking about gas hobs? Surely that's much worse than the electric/induction one you appear to be using.
It produces CO2, NO2 and some CO. But it's not going to show anything on a PM2.5 meter.
The particles when frying come from the oil turning into smoke, as well as just aerosolization even well below the smoke point. These are what send PM2.5 levels skyrocketing.
When I sear a steak in cast iron, my PM2.5 levels go from their baseline of ~2 ug/m^3 to ~200–400. And course you can smell it in the air.
Also, cooking of all kinds spikes PM levels in my experience. Maybe eggs in a 100% clean non-stick pan are an exception, but I doubt it if you can smell it.
Surprisingly, making the bed, shaking out the sheets, or vacuuming doesn't make it change color.
But farting in the room makes it red for minutes.
An ever amusing phenomenon that makes my girlfriend and I chuckle on a weekly basis.
But it pretty consistently sets off the Coway air purifier in my kitchen when I do it...so I would assume frying with oil to the point of smoking does adversely affect air quality.
My one wish is the west adopted Chinese style kitchens. Even in new condo builds the kitchen will be isolated in a room you can close off, with an exterior wall and powerful exhaust vents. I always found it perplexing how ok folks are with what feels like cooking food in their bedroom.
Was it one of those useless microwave ones?
Now if we're cooking with gas (as the east Germans use to say in the 80's), that generates quite some PM2.5 in an of itself.
Also, anyone cooking eggs without getting to the Maillard reaction (or for that matter, with oil instead of butter) should never again legally allowed to approach a frying pan :D
That said, I personally use the Breathe Airmonitor Plus [1] - I kept having issues with calibration with the temtop unit. Mostly decided on this one since it uses an NDIR sensor similar to my Aranet which I carry with me all the time.
0 - https://amzn.to/423AAaj
I suggest frying some bacon and report back.
Does your extractor fan vent to the outside, or just recirculate through a filter? In my experience, people often overestimate how much protection ventilation provides. It mostly dilutes contaminants rather than removing or isolating them. For example, with moderately hazardous compounds, a fume hood works fine under normal use, but in the event of a spill it can’t bring levels back down quickly enough to protect the operator. In that kind of situation, an isolator makes far more sense or adding PPE, though that can be burdensome.
What really surprised me is how high the values get from just a single pan. It makes me wonder what it’s like in a commercial kitchen with multiple pans at higher temperatures, especially if the extractor fan fails and there’s no time to shut down operations to fix it.
Where the device is relative to the pan and fan would clearly matter. It should be across the room to get a better estimate of the net effect. Not right next to the pan.
People forget your breathing in the exhaust of burning a fossil fuel.
What i like about this device that they give a very precisce and clear physical definition of each metric and explain by what quantitative factors the metric is influenced.
incl. potential measurement error sources and ability's to reset sensors.
Definitely recommend this over other air quality devices that try to simplify all the measurements into good/bad..
(Note: Just a happy user no affiliation whatsoever with the company)
As a side effect, I now have a collection of very well seasoned cast iron.
If there should be a cohort that would be the canary in the coal mine, it would be professional chefs, who day-in and day-out cook for a living over several hours per day. Yet, I have not heard of any studies raising alarms for the profession.
Cheers
Man, I wish I had the confidence to just disregard science and research done by professionals.